David McKee Wright's book of poems published in Dunedin in 1897 was the closest New Zealand equivalent to the 'Bulletin' school of Australian poetry. The Bulletin was a lively anti-British periodical from Sydney, which printed poems and stories by 'bush poets' such as Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson. They focused on the earthy outdoor life of the Australian backblocks. Wright's ballads captured some of this flavour. This is the last verse of his poem 'While the billy boils':

The speargrass crackles under the billy and overhead is
              the winter sun;
There's snow on the hills, there's frost in the gully,
              and, Oh, the things that I've seen and done,
The blokes that I knowed and the mates that I've worked
              with, and the sprees we had in the days gone by;
But I somehow fancy we'll all be pen-mates on the day
              when they call the Roll of the Sky.

(Ian Wedde, and Harvey McQueen, eds., The Penguin book of New Zealand verse. Auckland: Penguin, 1985, p. 104)